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Kyrgyz language
, , |region=Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Xinjiang (China), Tajikistan, Russia, Pakistan |speakers=2.9 million |date=1993–2000 |ref=e17 |script=Kyrgyz alphabets (Cyrillic script, Perso-Arabic script, formerly Latin, Kyrgyz Braille) |familycolor=Altaic |fam1=Turkic |fam2=Kipchak |fam3=Kazakh–Nogay |nation= |iso1=ky |iso2=kir |iso3=kir |notice=IPA }} Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (natively , , ) is a Turkic language spoken by about four million people in Kyrgyzstan as well as China, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Russia. Kyrgyz is a member of the Kazakh-Nogai subgroup of the Kypchak languages, and modern-day language convergence has resulted in an increasing degree of mutual intelligibility between Kyrgyz and Kazakh. Kyrgyz was originally written in the Turkic runes,Кызласов И. Л., Рунические письменности евразийских степей (Kyzlasov I.L. Runic scripts of Eurasian steppes), Восточная литература (Eastern Literature), Moscow, 1994, pp. 80 on, ISBN 5-02-017741-5, with further bibliography. gradually replaced by an Arabic alphabet (in use until 1928 in USSR, still in use in China). Between 1928 and 1940, the Latin-based Uniform Turkic Alphabet was used. In 1940 due to general Soviet policy, a Cyrillic alphabet eventually became common and has remained so to this day, though some Kyrgyz still use the Arabic alphabet. When Kyrgyzstan became independent following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, there was a popular idea among some Kyrgyz people to make transition to the Latin alphabet (taking in mind a version closer to the Turkish alphabet, not the original alphabet of 1928–1940), but the plan has not been implemented yet. History Pre-historic roots The first people known certainly by the name Kyrgyz are mentioned in early medieval Chinese sources as northern neighbors and sometime subjects of the Turkic steppe empire based in the area of Mongolia. The Kyrgyz people were involved in the international trade route system popularly known as the Silk Road no later than the late eighth century. By the time of the destruction of the Uighur Empire in 840 CE, they spoke a Turkic language little different from Old Turkic, and wrote it in the same runic script. After their victory over the Uyghurs the Kyrgyz did not occupy the Mongolian steppe, and their history for several centuries after this period is little known, though they are mentioned in medieval geographical works as living not far from their present location. Colonization In the period of tsarist administration (1876–1917), the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz both were called Kyrgyz, with what are now the Kyrgyz subdenominated when necessary as Kara-Kyrgyz "black Kyrgyz" (Turkic groups often used color terms to show division of the same group based on geography; black referred to southern groups ). The modern Kyrgyz language did not have a standard written form until 1923, at which time an Arabic alphabet was introduced. That was changed to a Latin alphabet, developed by Kasym Tynystanov in 1928 and to a Cyrillic alphabet in 1940. In the years immediately following independence, another change of alphabet was discussed, but the issue does not seem to generate the same passions in Kyrgyzstan that it does in other former Soviet republics, perhaps because the Kyrgyz Cyrillic alphabet is relatively simple and is particularly well-suited to the language. Post-Soviet dynamics In the early 1990s, the Akayev government pursued an aggressive policy of introducing Kyrgyz as the official language, forcing the remaining European population to use Kyrgyz in most public situations. Public pressure to enforce this change was sufficiently strong that a Russian member of President Akayev's staff created a public scandal in 1992 by threatening to resign to dramatize the pressure for "Kyrgyzification" of the non-native population. A 1992 law called for the conduct of all public business to be converted fully to Kyrgyz by 1997. But in March 1996, Kyrgyzstan's parliament adopted a resolution making Russian an official language alongside Kyrgyz and marking a reversal of earlier sentiment. Substantial pressure from Russia was a strong factor in this change, which was part of a general rapprochement with Russia urged by Akayev. Phonology Vowels Consonants Adopted from occur only in foreign borrowings. The consonant phonemes /k/, /g/, and /ŋ/ have uvular realisations (q, ɢ, and ɴ respectively) in back vowel contexts (before back vowels). In front-vowel environments, /g/ is fricativised between continuants (to ɣ), and in back vowel environments both /k/ and /g/ fricativise (to χ and ʁ respectively). Additionally, the liquid /l/ is realised as a dorsal /ɫ/ in back vowel contexts. Other consonants have slightly different realisations in front- versus back-vowel contexts and when between continuants or not, but these are the clearest examples. Desonorisation and devoicing In Kyrgyz, suffixes beginning with /n/ show desonorisation of the /n/ to d after consonants (including /j/), and devoicing to t after voiceless consonants; e.g. the definite accusative suffix -NI patterns like this: кеме'ни' the boat, ай'ды' the month, тор'ду' the net, кол'ду' the hand, таң'ды' the dawn, көз'дү' the eye, баш'ты' the head. Suffixes beginning with /l/ also show desonorisation and devoicing, though only after consonants of equal or lower sonority than /l/, e.g. the plural suffix -LAr patterns like this: кеме'лер' boats, ай'лар' months, тор'лор' nets, кол'дор' hands, таң'дар' dawns, көз'дөр' eyes, баш'тар' heads. Other /l/-initial suffixes, such as -LA, a denominal verbal suffix, and -LUU, a denominal adjectival suffix, may surface either with /l/ or /d/ after /r/; e.g. тор'до'-/тор'ло'- to net/weave, түр'дүү'/түр'лүү' various. See the section below on case for more examples. Writing system The Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan use a Cyrillic alphabet, which uses all the Russian letters plus ң, ө, and ү. In Xinjiang, an Arabic alphabet is used. Morphology and syntax Case Nouns in Kyrgyz take a number of case endings that change based on vowel harmony and the sort of consonant they follow (see the section on phonology). Normally the decision between the velar ( , ) and uvular ( and ) pronunciation of /г/ and /к/ is based on the backness of the following vowel—i.e. back vowels imply a uvular rendering and front vowels imply a velar rendering—and the vowel in suffixes is decided based on the preceding vowel in the word. However, with the dative suffix in Kyrgyz, the vowel is decided normally, but the decision between velars and uvulars can be decided based on a contacting consonant, for example банк /bank/ 'bank' + GA yields банкка , not as predicted by the following vowel. Pronouns Kyrgyz has eight personal pronouns: The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart. Singular pronouns (with the exception of сиз, which used to be plural) exhibit irregularities, while plural pronouns don't. Irregular forms are highlighted in bold. In addition to the pronouns, there are several more sets of morphemes dealing with person. Demonstrative pronouns Subordinate clauses To form complement clauses, Kyrgyz nominalises verb phrases. For example, "I don't know what I saw" would be rendered as "Мен эмнени көргөнүмдү билбейм" (Men emneni körgönümdü bilbeym): I what-ACC.DEF see-ing-1st.SG-ACC.DEF know-NEG-1st.SG, or roughly "I don't know my having seen what," where the verb phrase "I saw what" is treated as a nominal object of the verb "to know." The sentence above is also an excellent example of Kyrgyz vowel harmony; notice that all the vowel sounds are front vowels. Several nominalisation strategies are used depending on the temporal properties of the relativised verb phrase: -GAn(dIK) for general past tense, -AAr for future/potential unrealised events, and -A turgan(dɯq) for non-perfective events are the most common. The copula has an irregular relativised form экен(дик) which may be used equivalently to forms of the verb бол- be (болгон(дук), болоор). Relativised verb forms may, and often do, take nominal possessive endings as well as case endings. See also *BGN/PCGN romanization of Kyrgyz *Kyrgyz people *Romanization of Kyrgyz Notes and references Bibliography * . * Krippes, Karl A. (1998). Kyrgyz: Kyrgyz-English/English-Kyrgyz: Glossary of Terms. Hippocrene Books, New York. ISBN 0-7818-0641-0. * Library of Congress, Country Studies, Kyrgyzstan. * Comrie, Bernard. 1983. The languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Beckwith, Christopher I. 1987/1993. "The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia." Princeton: Princeton University Press. * Tchoroev, Tyntchtykbek. 2003. The Kyrgyz.; in: The History of Civilisations of Central Asia, Vol. 5, Development in contrast: from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century /Editors: Ch. Adle and Irfan Habib. Co-editor: Karl M. Baipakov. – UNESCO Publishing. Multiple History Series. Paris. – Chapter 4, p. 109 – 125. (ISBN 92-3-103876-1). External links * Kyrgyz language * Root Vowels and Affix Vowels: Height Effects in Kyrgyz Vowel Harmony * Kyrgyz exercises * The Talking Kyrgyz Phrasebook * Кыргыз тили – Kyrgyz language resources (in Russian) * Кербен Translit - Easy Kyrgyz-Cyrillic–Latin converter * Kyrgyz Cyrillic–Arabic–Latin converter * Kyrgyz–Russian–English Dictionary * Kyrgyz Latin Alphabet * Kyrgyz-Turkish Dictionary * Russian-Kyrgyz Kyrgyz-Russian Dictionary * Kyrgyz - Apertium Category:Kyrgyz language Category:Agglutinative languages Category:Vowel-harmony languages Category:Turkic languages Category:Languages of China Category:Languages of the Kyrgyz Republic Category:Languages of Russia Category:Languages of Kazakhstan Category:Turkic languages of Afghanistan Category:Languages of Uzbekistan Category:Languages of Tajikistan Category:Languages of Turkey